


The Least Of What I Could Do

by okaypianist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Drama, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Films, Light Angst, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Musicals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22686121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaypianist/pseuds/okaypianist
Summary: "I refuse to play opposite someone who has never had a part in their entire life," sneers Ben."Either Rey goes or I do."
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange, the short and completed Reylo works of o. k. p.





	The Least Of What I Could Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [benperor-ren (winterelf86)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterelf86/gifts).



> I chose this prompt: "Ben and Rey are high school enemies and they live next door to each other. Circumstances bring them together to form a friendship and eventually a romance. (This can be through tragedy, previously unknown shared interests etc.)" 
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from The Folk of the Air book series by Holly Black, which the prompter and I both enjoyed reading.

"Damn, Solo, what do you want this time? Can't you just leave me the fuck alone?" Rey Johnson exclaims as she slams her wobbly purple locker shut.

Rey felt someone tapping her shoulder, and she just left her third period AP Biology, so she assumed it was her nemesis, Ben Solo, who unfortunately shares that class with her as well as two other ones. Fortunately, it isn't Solo behind her, but the calm and polite junior Kaydel, who seems nervous after Rey's outburst.

"Sorry, Rey. It's just me," offers Kaydel.

"No, I'm sorry, Kay. I didn't mean to yell. What's up?"

Kaydel takes a deep breath, fidgets with the hem of her Junior Jewels 2007 shirt, and then launches into what is clearly a well-rehearsed speech.

"Rey, we, Rose and Jannah and I, we all wanted to know if you're available to help with our movie for the film festival? Like, yeah, you quit the club, but the festival can have entries from anyone in the school, so if you help us edit or write us some music or whatever, like, we could still win the big prize. We're happy with what footage we got, but nobody has a vision as good as yours Rey, so, um, will you?"

Rey sighs. Rey rolls her eyes. Rey digs the tip of one of her checkered Vans into the side of the other one, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Rey bites her lip and rolls her eyes again.

"Yeah, Kaydel. Okay. Get me the flash drive or whatever, and then, yeah, I'll do it."

"Rey, oh my God, yes, thank you- I knew it- the festival is in three weeks... yes, yes, yes!" And with that, Kaydel skips away, and Rey is left regretting most of the choices she has made in the last three and a half years. She knows what she might have to look at least a few times in that film festival footage... the face of the horrible Ben Solo.

\-----

Ben Solo and Rey Johnson have been next-door neighbors since the summer before their freshman year at Chandrila High School in Chandrila, Texas. Ben's family has been a part of the Chandrila community for generations. Rey's family? Well, Rey's family now are her foster parents, Maz and Charlie Kanata. Her birth family is still something she only talks about every-other Tuesday afternoon at four-thirty pm, in an office full of overstuffed ruffle pillows and large black-and-white paintings of various smiling animals. The Kanatas are all the family Rey could ever have wanted. Still, it's hard not to be jealous of someone like Ben, who seems to have a family legacy or a great destiny or some normal-people bullshit like that.

When she first met Ben, Rey had three nearly simultaneous thoughts:

He is tall.

He has soft-looking hair.

He has beautiful eyes.

All three of those impressions hold over their years in high school (and she confirms with her own two hands at one sophomore party that his hair is, in fact, shampoo-commercial soft). Unfortunately, she got a fourth impression last year that greatly overshadowed the other three in her mind. Impression four:

He is a tactless asshole.

After that first summer of sitting on the Solos' back porch and talking about movies and MTV, and after several school years spent as mostly-strangers-but-distantly-polite-to-each-other-when-in-direct-line-of-sight, Rey thought Ben had at least a vaguely neutral impression of her. That was revealed to be false when, on a whim, she tried out for the school musical.

Rose, Jannah and Ben have always been in drama classes at Chandrila High, but Rey stuck with choir and piano lab. She had been quite happy to spend freshman year's musical in the orchestra pit and sophomore year's in the chorus, but the chance to have an actual speaking part in her favorite show, The Sound of Music, proved too tempting to resist. A little part, like a nun or a younger von Trapp sibling is all she dares to hope for... but Mrs. Kalonia casts Rey as Liesl, the oldest of the siblings and the singer of the famous "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." Rey is nervously ecstatic, staring silently at the posted cast list for about four seconds until she hears a scoff behind her... at about the same time that she realizes her boyfriend in the show is supposed to be played by...

"No. Absolutely not. I refuse to play opposite someone who has never had a part in their entire life," sneers a looming Ben, while his theater friends nod sycophantically. "I'm telling Kalonia that either Rey goes or I do." He turns on his gigantic heel and stalks toward the theater office.

Of course, Mrs. Kalonia was smart enough to have a drama club officer post the cast list on a Friday afternoon, only once Kalonia herself was safely in the parking lot and heading home, so Ben fumes all weekend. Rey meekly requests a new part Monday morning before her first class starts, and she is told she can swap parts with a different von Trapp sister. The rehearsals and performances of the musical all go on just fine. Rey still gets to sing and dance along to some of her most beloved songs of all time, and she doesn't even have to stand close to that idiot Ben Solo, much less sing and dance with him the way the new Liesl, a girl named Jess, does. Still, it hurts to think about, so Rey mostly doesn't. She's pretty good at suppressing things. For the first fourteen years of her life, it was a necessity, after all. What's one more person who doesn't want her?

\-----

Kaydel, Jannah and Rose get their film festival footage to Rey the day after Rey agreed that she would edit, and possibly compose, for them. She sits in front of the Kanata's giant Dell desktop after school, with ancient headphones on and some snacks sitting just to the left of the keyboard. Rey gets a few laughs out of the early scenes, and she starts trying to think of existing music that would fit the tone of what she's seeing. It's so easy to lose herself in the joys of film again.

Rey has always enjoyed learning how to write a script, how to frame a shot, how to edit clips in Windows Movie Maker, and how to find sound effects and songs that perfectly accompany different types of films. Or, rather, she had always enjoyed it. After switching roles in the play, Rey tried to stay away from anything related to Ben. And Ben was in the film club too, so... no more film for Rey. Just another thing in her life messed up by Solo. Maybe she could have stayed in the club and tried to ignore Ben, or hoped that he would quit out of guilt, but it felt easier to just leave. She knows how to stay scarce when she isn't welcome.

And then, after about half an hour of footage, Rey's earlier suspicions are confirmed: Ben is in this film. He's playing a disgruntled father and he is properly scary and unpleasant (of course). Beyond all the scowling and stalking around, though, Rey has to admit that Ben is a decent actor. He somehow unknowingly becomes the focus of every shot he is in, because even during his silent portions, he stays intense and focused. There would be no way to make a “blooper reel” with Solo in it because he doesn’t ever seem to goof around with the other actors. He never even smiles after his mistakes, which are rare. He just tilts his head or purses his lips and then gets right back into character.

Like something out of a different and more professionally edited film, Rey suddenly experiences a sensation that she loves: that of music just sort of creating itself inside her brain. Thrilled, she grabs her sheet music notebook and a favorite pencil off of the table next to the computer desk and begins trying to commit what notes she’s sensing to paper. Composing is sometimes very difficult for Rey, but the best times are the ones like this. The ones where she is inspired. The ones where she is moved. The ones where she is… writing a Ben Solo theme? That can’t be right…

As she stares at the page, Rey is sure of it. This music is meant for Ben’s character. She’ll need to come up with themes for the other three main characters of this film, or otherwise, it’ll just be _boring - boring - boring - oh, wow, here’s some music that makes it sound like Rey is still hung up on Ben_ and then everyone will know, and that will be terrible, and…

Rey closes her eyes and takes a few slow, deep breaths. She counts the breaths as they go by, just like she learned to do in one of those every-other Tuesday afternoon sessions. She tries to look at this logically. Surely, no teenager in the film festival’s audience will figure out that Rey the composer has an inconvenient, awful, unwanted, stupid crush on Ben the actor just by hearing the music that plays while he is on screen. For one thing, that is giving the average person at Chandrila High _way_ too much credit. For another, there aren’t even lyrics to the music. It’s just a melody that suits this character. Honestly, if she just looped it through the whole film, probably no one except the judges and Kalonia would notice. This is fine. She’s fine. It’s fine.

\-----

The editing gets done. The composing gets done. The arduous process of rendering the film and then burning it onto a DVD-RW gets done. The infinitely more satisfying designing and printing of a custom label for said DVD, and a custom insert for its jewel case, gets done (oh, how Rey loves making CD and DVD covers and jewel case inserts!). Before Rey can overthink it more than a regular teenage amount of times, the film is premiering in the Chandrila High School Short Film Festival on a Friday night in the spring of 2007. Rey sits with Jannah and Rose and Kaydel, which means Ben is sitting uncomfortably close by with many of their mutual friends, just one row ahead of Rey and four seats to the left. She tries not to look at his tall, stupid head, tries not to search his features for laughs during the comedy films and frowns during the serious ones, tries not to wonder what he will think of her work on his film. She is not terribly successful. And then. Then… then, it’s time for their movie.

The audience reception seems decent. They are high school auditorium-level quiet (so, never truly silent, but at least not rowdy) during the entire movie. There is a respectable amount of clapping and cheering at the end. Rey hopes that's enough to help them win a prize. With eighteen shorts and only five awards, it would not be terrible to be passed over. It’s just that- maybe going home with a little gold-painted trophy, depicting the Chandrila school mascot holding an old-timey reel of film, might make all the worries over Ben (and all that time she had to spend looking at his face while editing) seem worth something.

After all of the shorts have been played, there is a quick break for the judges to go discuss the prizes backstage while the audience stays in the auditorium. Rey and her friends chat about homework and college applications while they wait, and Rey continues to periodically fail at the “pretend Ben doesn’t exist, stop looking, why are you looking over there Rey?” game. Once the judges are back, the house lights go off, the spotlight goes on, and Kalonia takes a microphone and a notecard up onto the stage. The screen is displaying the standard Chandrila High logo. It’s a boring auditorium on a boring Friday in a boring town, but it’s everything Rey loves- and hates- about high school all, stuffed into one room.

Best Comedy and Best Drama are announced, and the winners come to grab their trophies. There was no chance of their movie winning those, Rey reassures herself, because it wasn’t really all funny or all serious. The Best Up-And-Comers prize, they aren’t even eligible for, because they aren’t freshmen or sophomores. Audience Favorite goes to a slick and shiny and substanceless (in Rey’s opinion) film, one that starred lots of popular seniors and got whoops and hollers from the crowd throughout its viewing. Then there is just one award left.

“The Best in Show award for 2007 goes to ’The Least of What I Could Do!’”

Rey, Ben, Jannah, Rose and everyone else involved make their way up to Kalonia. Each student from the project grabs a little trophy. They all pose for a group photo. They cheer and they smile at each other and they go eat some dry, over-frosted Albertson’s sheet cake in a reception held in a classroom down the hall. Through it all, Rey is in a daze. Best in Show? Their film is really the best?

Ben approaches Rey just as she takes a huge bite of disappointing cake, and she tries not to scowl at him. He says congratulations and she keeps chewing and gives him a little nod, but then he waits. Just stares and stares at her. Once her mouth is clear, she asks, “What do you want, Solo?” He does his nervous lip-bite thing and says, “Rey… I loved your music. Your editing was good, it always is, but the music was the best part.”

“Thanks,” Rey grumbles, but she just can’t let it go. “Why are you being nice to me, Solo? I thought you hated me.”

Ben’s face and ears go a little pink. “Can you walk with me, Rey?” Confused, she agrees and they step out into the dimly lit hallway.

“I have never hated you, Rey.”

“Then,” she asks, “why did you try and get me kicked out of the play last year? I thought we were good and then you got so pissed that I even got any part.”

“Not any part,” he admits. “You were supposed to be my girlfriend. I didn’t want our first kiss to be onstage.”

“Our first kiss?”

“Rey, I’ve wanted to kiss you since about three seconds after you started living next door to me. I’ve never stopped wanting to kiss you. I guess now I just stopped being afraid of admitting it.”

Rey is stunned. Shocked. Speechless. Solo takes this as a rejection.

“I know you actually do hate me, and I deserve it. I’ve been such a dick to you and I shouldn’t have acted like it was about you not being in drama class. I didn’t want to make an ass of myself onstage with you and instead, I made an ass of myself in real life which is way worse.” Ben sighs and starts to walk back toward the classroom with the reception, but Rey grabs one of his muscular arms.

“I don’t hate you either, Ben,” she says, and then he leans down and kisses her.

It is a short and gentle kiss, soft and unexpected.

It tastes like slightly stale cake and Coca-Cola.

It feels like the least of what they could do.


End file.
